Shared Measures
by abundanceofvowels
Summary: Written for the johnlock gift exchange organized by johnlockchallenges on tumblr. The prompt I received was "Sherlock deduces something dark about John's past but loves him anyway".


A year has passed, to the day, when Sherlock makes the connection.

"Of course."

John raises his face momentarily from the paper he is reading and looks up to his flatmate, slumped in his chair with his hands folded, fingertips resting against his philtrum as if in prayer.

"Hm? Figured out something for the case?"

"You could say that..."

John tears the rest of his attention from the sports section (his last stop before folding the paper and getting dressed- the obituaries and any local news stories are given priority and examined carefully while sipping the day's first cup of tea) and places it on the arm of his chair before grinning slightly and allowing a familiar light to enter his gaze.

"Well, let's hear it, then. What detail have you managed to spot, hidden in plain sight?"

Sherlock knows that what he has deduced will not be what John expects to hear. In fact, it would not surprise him if it were to receive a negative reaction. If he were what most people classified as 'normal' he would save his friend the pain of sharing this particular epiphany. However, Sherlock Holmes is hardly accustomed to normalcy and it has taken him twelve months to find the final piece of this puzzle and he is not about to leave the picture incomplete. He moves his hands from their position and straightens his spine into something more upright before folding them between his knees, elbows perched on his thighs.

"When I jumped-"

Sure enough, John's posture shifts slightly, becomes defensive. He doesn't like talking about the fall. It had hurt him, badly. Still does. Even after Sherlock had returned and explained, John has avoided the subject. Sherlock, because he knows not the concept of empathy, continues.

"-Rather when you approached and my head was turned toward you, I had the opportunity to study your expression. I saw the expected emotions: fear, regret, concern, shock...but there was something more, something that I couldn't place and now I know why."

"Sherlock, I really don't-"

"John."

John's eyes have closed and his mouth is drawn into a thin line, but something about the way Sherlock says his name persuades him to allow the discussion to continue.

"I saw a fifth emotion cross your face that day, John. You felt shame. But why? The explanation of the others is obvious, natural, but shame? Why would watching your friend die be shameful? It took me a while to sort it out but now I understand."

John's eyes remain firmly shut and his brow furrows, his fingers clenching around the ends of the armrests on his chair, skin tightening near whiteness at the knuckles.

"Say it, then." he manages, voice low and strained.

For a moment, in a pause, it is possible that Sherlock develops something close to humility and reconsiders sharing. That, or, infinitely more likely: he believes that it is a waste of his time to tell John something that he already knows.

"Surely _you_ know wh-"

"No. Say it, Sherlock. I want to hear you say it."

He tightens his bottom lip before taking a deep breath and finally explaining.

"You felt shame, John, because watching what you assumed was an attempt at taking my own life reminded you of your own. Back during your time in the military, I would imagine. A rather common occurrence, actually, and you must know that I think no lower of you having affirmed this knowledge. I merely-"

"Stop. Stop it."

Sherlock's mouth hangs open dumbly for a moment but he quickly closes it and looks intently at his friend, willing him to speak. John takes a deep breath through his nose and begins.

"It may be common but that doesn't make it any less awful or shameful. I didn't think at all what it would do to the people that I had left behind; the people that I loved. I had a series of bad days capped off by a fucking horrible one and I wasn't strong enough to deal with it. I had failed and people had died and I didn't think there was any use left for me. In the end, I couldn't even manage to kill myself right. I couldn't take my own life...and then, watching you fall...I couldn't save yours and I-"

John's face is wet with tears by this point and his explanation is cut off by a quiet, heaving sob.

"John, I'm here now." Sherlock offers, an attempt at reassurance. He has never been very good at expressing positive emotions when they aren't associated with the chance of a corpse being involved.

"I _know_ that." John's voice was small, distant, still shaken.

"And you're wrong, of course." Sherlock says, matter-of-factly.

"I'm...I'm what?" John wipes his face on the sleeve of his bathrobe and stares at his flatmate-turned best friend, his face a mix of distressed confusion and annoyance.

"You said you couldn't save my life. That is incorrect."

"What are you going on about?"

"You saved my life the moment you agreed to meet me on our doorstep."

John's gaze narrows, becomes softer, the corners of his lips turning down.

"I had dark days, John. The amount of times that I came close to taking my own life before I was...encouraged into sobriety and during the days I spent in detox are too numerous to recount. The risks that I face now are no less life-threatening, of course, but I'm not tackling them alone. I have a lifeline, a second chance, a...reason to continue."

John's face is wet again but it isn't on account of sadness and as the most recent trails of tears are wiped away by gentle fingertips and a pair of slender yet strong arms lifts him up and into a warm embrace, the sentiment is shared. John's arms raise to press firmly into the back of the svelte figure in front of him, nose buried in the dress shirt that fits like a second skin while Sherlock lowers his chin to rest on the top of the light, greying, still-damp hair attached to scalp of the head of the beautiful, strong man in his arms. They breathe each other's scent and presence deeply in and hold to each other desperately like they do to the fact that they have lives left to live; together.

Their grips weaken and arms slide down until the inside of John's elbows rest on Sherlock's forearms and Sherlock's wrists are resting on the other's hips, fingers touching lightly at terrycloth and wound together, holding tight. Sherlock's face is still pressing warmth against the top of John's head and John chuckles as the tickle of breath moves his fringe. His laughter resonates through his body, transferring into Sherlock via every point of contact, sending a pleasant sensation down his limbs and an unfamiliar tightness in his chest that pulls him invisibly nearer to the man in his arms.

"John..." he breathes, barely more than a whisper.

"I know, 'people will talk'..." John replies softly with the slightest hint of a grin, moving his hands from behind Sherlock and onto his front, tracing the thicker stripe of fabric studded with struggling buttons as he drags them up towards the flat planes of his chest, admiring the quality of the fabric beneath the pads of his fingers and palms and the suggestion of muscle and skin and beating heart underneath it all.

"...and you know what?"

Sherlock looks down at John, meeting his eyes and multiplying the pull in his chest until his heart pounds and his breath catches, shallow, half way down his throat. This is dangerous, this sensation that he cannot control.

In situations like this, Sherlock's usual instinct is to fight back and flee. To hurt. But this man, this incredible puzzle of a human being is the one thing that he'd sworn to himself that he would never see hurt again.

This man, this soldier, his soldier, his..._John _has changed the chemicals of his brain and his physical reactions into something dangerous and unexpected but wonderful and everything he needs and he shifts his weight closer to the hands ghosting over the spaces under his perfectly starched collar.

John tilts his head up and closes his hands over the fabric and pulls.

"I don't give a _damn._" John speaks over Sherlock's mouth which is, like his eyes, opened slightly in surprise and then John tilts his head and closes the final centimeters between them and Sherlock folds into the feeling, closing his eyes, fingers finding purchase on John's shoulder blades. This joining of lips is unbelievably gentle and Sherlock knows he was wrong before, about the final piece of the puzzle. He could spend the rest of his life with the man whose fingers are pulling through his soft curls and deepening the kiss and never know enough.

For Sherlock realizes that John has done what many- Sherlock included -had deemed beyond the realm of possibility, has broken through his shell and worn paths of footprints across his heart and left pieces of himself behind along the way. He does it so easily, gives himself over and is asking for nothing but the same in return. Sherlock worries for a moment whether or not that is something he is willing or ready to give, and then John's hands and tongue and unfathomable _warmth_ draw him impossibly closer and Sherlock lets go of his thoughts and offers them to John and John takes them (the miracle worker) and softens out their worried edges and gathers them together and leaves them in a place for them both; the space shared by John Watson and Sherlock Holmes and their newly united hearts. It is a space that is crowded and full of bits jutting out with uneven edges that, against all odds, fit together perfectly.

_This_, Sherlock thinks and he sends the thought to John who takes it and holds it and stores it away, is as close as he will ever come to knowing what it is that other people spend their lives searching for.

In a catalogue of lips and words and limbs for nights of years to come, Sherlock will search for and file away everything he possibly can about John Hamish Watson, retired army doctor, partner, friend, lover, reason to live; and John will meet him halfway every time.

Sherlock thinks a singular thought as strongly as he can and John adds it to the overflowing pile in their shared place and doesn't have to say a word for Sherlock to know that he feels the same way, but he does, in whispers on quiet nights and casually during cab rides and never without meaning it with every fibre of his being; and it's one of the few things that he will never grow bored of hearing.

"I love you, too."


End file.
